Welcome to the denouement of American democracy.
In what can only be called a landslide, Donald J. Trump has been elected to be the 47th president of the United States of America. This is a man who uses violent language when discussing his political opponents, wants to imprison reporters, and plans to deport tens of millions of people, including Gaza protesters on college campuses. He is a man who loves autocrats and plans to rule as a fascist himself.
Trump’s second rise represents a dramatic and pointed failure of American institutions — with universities among them — to stand against fascism. And now, we are left to deal with the fallout.
In the coming days, we — as an institution and as individuals — must drastically rethink our role in American society. Get ready, Princeton: in a nation backsliding toward authoritarianism, universities like ours must stand as bastions of democracy. Silence in the face of fascism is not neutrality, it is acquiescence.
So, what should we do? How do we become that bastion of democracy?
Institutionally, Princeton must put its money where its mouth is by fully rejecting institutional neutrality and having a more active commitment to our professed values. Take it from University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 himself: “We have to stand up for our values.” Well, a second Trump administration stands as an enemy of a vast majority of the University’s commitments, including free speech, free inquiry, diversity, the public good, and sustainability.
Princeton and other American universities should look abroad to examples of universities becoming bastions of democracy. The University of Hong Kong long stood as a stronghold of freedom against the Chinese regime until China curtailed it. Central European University in Hungary served as a defender of the free expression of ideas until the Orbán regime forced it out of the country. In Brazil, public universities pushed back against the authoritarian values of autocrat Jair Bolsonaro until Bolsonaro slashed their funding.
All of these universities stood against fascism but were quelled. Princeton, as a world-renowned and private research university, has the chance to succeed. The University must immediately restate its commitment to stand for democracy, free expression, and academic freedom. It must frequently take a powerful stance in response to Trump administration policies that threaten those ideals.
And today, Princeton must act proactively to protect its student body, faculty, and staff from the threat of a second Trump administration. It must move to protect international and undocumented students against the threat of deportation. It must be prepared to decouple itself from federal funding for research by drawing on the endowment. It must promote, rather than repress, the strong tradition of student protest.
If the University fails to act, it will be wholly unprepared for the total onslaught against universities that will begin on Jan. 20. Trump has promised to “reclaim” universities from the “Marxist maniacs and lunatics” who he claims control them — they don’t: this is obviously Trump turning universities into a strawman for the purposes of attacking them. He proclaimed that “our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system,” and explained that by removing accreditors he will be able to exert more control over universities. Vice President-Elect JD Vance advocated for universities being “controlled by the American taxpayer,” while praising Orbán’s move to crack down on universities.
The University must recognize the mortal threat to democracy, free expression, and academic freedom posed by the coming administration, and it must act proactively to stand as a bulwark against it. Moreover, Princeton students must be strong and active advocates for the preservation of American democracy. We must do away with our notorious apathy and stand up for this country we all love. We must do away with our inaction and stand up for our friends and neighbors who hail from abroad. We must — in the tradition of the brave young people from past generations who held sit-ins, organized the Freedom Rides, and protested against unjust war — be the loud and ever-present voice of young people in American society who demand better.
Princeton, the time for complacency and disinterest is over. In the future, the history books — if there are any — will either remember a failure of American institutions to defend our democracy, or they will paint a picture of our universities, press corps, and public servants as the last line of defense against a petty tyrant who tried — and failed — to wrest from us our most fundamental freedoms.
So if you say you don’t care about politics, stop, because politics cares about you, like it or not. Here we all are, being shoved toward the precipice of tyranny, and we must shove back.
Ben Franklin famously told a woman after the Constitutional Convention that the United States had “a republic — if you can keep it.” The time has come to fight for our republic and prove that America, no matter how far it falls toward fascism, will always stand for democracy and freedom around the world. Today, we have a republic, but only if we can keep it.
Isaac Barsoum is a first-year contributing Opinion writer from Charlotte, N.C. intending to major in Politics. You can reach him at itbarsoum[at]princeton.edu.
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